John Fiske, "Popular Culture"

Closing out and perhaps punctuating our Ch 1 readings in Brummett, here is John Fiske's 1995 essay, "Popular Culture," identifying his understanding of "popular culture" as a term then emerging at the forefront of critical theory. This version of the essay is hyperlinked in ways that lead to additionally useful terms, theories, essays, and sites. Possibly useful for your projects. Enjoy.

Fwiw, I am a long time admirer of Fiske's work. Here are the slides (open in Keynote) from class. In a far less lovely presentation style, here are the slides in ppt.

cyborg foundation (film)

This is not so much about privacy, but I simply had to share it!!

Dr. Karl Stolley (on FB Graph Search)

Dr. Karl Stolley (interviewed here, in this clip) is an Associate Professor of Digital Writing & Rhetoric at Illinois Institute of Technology. He "run[s] both a physical lab, known as the Digital Communication Research and Instruction Lab, and complementary virtual lab, known as Gewgaws Lab, that design and investigate open source technologies in communication. In December 2010, [he ] received the Dean’s Award for Excellence in Teaching from IIT’s College of Science and letters." Dr. Stolley will join us via Gmail Chat tomorrow (Thursday, 1/31). 

Please generate a few questions for Dr. Stolley. Consider our reading (Brummett), the documentary (WLIP, Me @ the Zoo, Catfish, or Secrecy), and your own experience. 

For myself, I might want to know:

1. How private is private? That is, can we ever really live online and in private? How?
2. How is privacy "sold"? That is, when Facebook wants to tout its privacy features, what do these rhetorics look like? How do they circulate? Are they successful?
3. Is privacy always already a fantasy? Are our performing selves so mythic and ubiquitous that privacy is a kind of delusion?
4. How do you feel, Karl, about how the local media set up this "story"? I see two ladies who appear to be reading a script written by Mark Zuckerberg, himself, with little room for questions or critique. Is this sort of public rhetoric damaging? Harmless? Or is it simply "business, as usual," the story eventually leading back to another, related story to be shown later, on the same network? ... 
5. Are our concerns regarding privacy being used to sell stories? To direct TV and web traffic?  
6. What can we do? What should we be doing? How do we disrupt these sorts of public rhetorics? Is play and parody apprpriate? Or, is this a more serious matter?
7. How serious is it?

A. O. Scott & David Carr on Manti Te'o

happy data privacy day!

image via StaySafeOnline.org

Today is Data Privacy Day! 

Here's some information on Data Privacy Day, from a few different sources. Notice how the event is represented, rhetorically, starting with keywords in the titles:

1. via Huffington Post ... keyword "Celebrates"
2. via Forbes ... keywords "Glass Half Full"
3. via AdWeek ... keyword "Fret"
4. via StaySafeOnline ... keywords "Respecting ... Safeguarding ... Trust"

What do the titles of these stories suggest about the current status of public rhetorics regarding "privacy"? Do the stories themselves, in their fullness, reveal greater complexity? How? Where? Find specific examples that demonstrate the range from propaganda to fact.

WLIP

To help prepare for our conversation on rhetorics involving privacy in WLIP, please draft a response to the following questions. Try to integrate concepts from the textbook, where and when you can, but don't avoid a more free-ranging initial bit of text.

1. Do you think you would ever have participated in such an experiment? If so, could you have imagined the extremes the film reveals?
2. Where in the film is privacy explicitly discussed?
3. Who talks about privacy? Is this a person/persons in power? What kind?
4. Whose privacy is at stake? How are this person/person empowered or disempowered?
5. Can you relate to either of these people/groups (see #2 and #3)? How? Why?
6. Many people have described Josh Harris as "prescient," as a man capable of foreseeing the future. In what way? What did he foresee? How accurate was his vision?
7. How does Harris' status at the end of the film speak to the matter of privacy as it's explored in the film?
8. Find out (by whatever means) what Harris is up to now. The film, out in 2009, provides only that very dated information. What else can we learn? 
9. Does your discovery regarding Harris change your thinking about his "work"?
10. What kinds of cultural work does WLIP do? That is, does is function as a "cautionary tale"? Or, is it more a straight documentary, director Ondi Timoner having found herself in a unique situation that she herself was later uniquely capable of sharing? (I have a short interview I taped with Ondi about 2 years ago -- we'll see some possible "answers" there. For now, speculate). 
11. What else does the film do? What other public rhetorics does it activate, tap, or alter? How?

The Onion's (PM) take (PR) on Jodie Foster

Jodie Foster Inspires Teens To Come Out Using Vague, Rambling Riddles 

Please note: This is not the clip to which you are responding (re: the assignment I reviewed in class). See the previous post for that clip. This is simply a clip passed along by a colleague/friend on Facebook. 

Of course, there is a lot to think about when we look at how public rhetorics converge around a popular media event. The Onion is great, so let's not even go there. No, really, parody and satire are often terrifically effective rhetorical moves to make in light of serious matters. But is there some potentially damaging overspill? Regarding this Onion piece ... do you think it pushes too far, diminishes the serious response to Foster's speech? If so, why do the writers believe it's going to work? What, in other words, were they thinking?

Jodie Foster's Golden Globes Speech

There is some controversy over Jodie Foster's Golden Globes speech, through which she accepted the Cecil B. DeMille Award and made some impassioned comments about privacy. Watch the video. Respond with a blog post in which you attempt to answer questions about the rhetorical situation that Foster's speech seems to want to draw from as a springboard for ... for what? Ask:

1. What do I know about Jodie Foster?
2. Who was Cecil B. DeMille? What is this award intended to "mean"? (why is it given? does it have alternative "real" implications? what are they?)
3. Who is Jodie Foster? Have I seen her work? 
4. What is her "public significance" in terms of popular media?
5. In what sorts of public rhetorics is Jodie Foster invoked? (search this; don't simply rely on memory).
6. What was her goal? What did she want her speech to do to/for you? What did she want you to think? to do? (or not think ... not do ... start doing, etc.)
7. Was she clear? If not, why? Did it matter? How? 
8. Did you discern any subtextual discourses that may help us to understand her purpose(s)?
9. Who was the audience? Of course, she was speaking, immediately, to the GG audience of her celebrity friends, but she was also speaking to hundreds of thousands of television and streaming web viewers, as well. How do you imagine Foster crafting this speech for *just that person(s)*?
10. Was this an appropriate or effective venue for this speech? Why? Why not?
11. Did you like it? Why? Why not?

video via Rolling Stone. 

Hello, and welcome to Public Rhetorics and Popular Media (PRPM). In this course, we will work through a common, useful language that is capable of helping us develop strategies for understanding PRPM. Such knowledge may help us to be(come) increasingly critical consumers and producers of cultural texts. For, as Dick Hebdige argues in Subculture: The Meaning of Style, "Violation of the authorized codes through which the social world is organized and experienced have considerable power to provoke and disturb" (587), and it is through provocation and disturbance that we nudge, shift, change, or simply come to comprehend and navigate those codes ... through rhetorical action.

To Do: Order the book Rhetoric and Popular Culture. 3rd ed. by Barry Brummett. You can find it on Amazon (or elsewhere). Get it right away. I can always make copies of the first chapter, in case your order isn't in by Tuesday (when I will assign light reading), so don't worry it too much, but do order the book a.s.a.p. Thanks!

In our Canvas space, I am including an outline of the course under the heading "Syllabus." The storyboard you see there will evolve to include "the legal" between now and Thursday of Week One.

Finally, I use Canvas mostly to send announcements to the class. I will also be developing this course blog, where I will house the assignments and pdfs and major links. I prefer to host my course via my Blogger blogs; ease of use and a few lovelier design options guide my thinking. I hope you don't mind one or two extra clicks. I will also ask you to build a Blogger blog (which we'll link to the course blog). I will assign reflective blog posts; you  you may also generally use your blog posts as spaces for reflecting upon those PRPM matters that concern you most (this can be useful invention for our projects).

Works Cited

Hebdige, Dick. Subculture: The Meaning of Style. Excerpt in Cultual Studies: An Anthology. Ed. Michael Ryan. Malden, MA: Blackwell, 2008. 587-598.